As with anything in the custom car world, it may be gay now, but give it a few years and it will be the newest trend... If you do it now, you could say you were ahead of your time...
Don't much care for the etching idea. I'd get the eastwood kit and polish like crazy, then see what's left. Might be small enough you could live with it. Anybody ever try filling something like that with epoxy, then polishing smooth? If not I'd consider some of the vinyl "stick-on" stuff -- especially if you could get some that would echo the graphics on the car.